The Man Who Disappears
by Cybrotha
Summary: An Old Man tells the story of a man the Doctor killed.


You walk up to this old man at the end of the bar because you'd been told to. You had asked around, hoping to hear some word about the Doctor. The whispers had led you to a cold, fishing village that might not have seen the sun in a decade. The fishy wind had been fighting you, clawing at your coat, trying to shoo you out of the village. Even still, you came because you needed to know about the Doctor. This old man at the end of the bar, with his salty, gray hair, has salty, gray eyes. He's got a frown tattooed on his face and he's got his nose planted so deep in his mug that you think he might be trying to drink his Guiness up his nostrils.

You call him 'Sir' because you want to sound respectful, but he doesn't respond. You slide a Tenner in front of his mug and his eyebrows perk up.

"What do you want?" The old man says in an accent so thick that you nearly get lost in it.

"I want to know about the Doctor." You say like you've said a thousand times before. You eye the old man and think that he'll know as much as everyone else. That is to say, he'll know nothing at all. Maybe, it's time you went home and forgot about the last of the Time Lords.

"Why would you be asking about that man? He's not even a man, you know. An alien. Some might say, he's a monster who chases other monsters."

"So, you do know about the Doctor?" You ask.

"As much as I can know. That is, far more than I'd ever like to know. My son, you see, had asked the Doctor for help and the Doctor killed him."

"What?" You ask. The Doctor wasn't a killer... Well, that wasn't exactly true. You knew that the Doctor protected the Earth and that meant stopping invaders from attacking, which sometimes meant killing. The Doctor had killed, you knew that, but the Doctor wouldn't kill a human.

"He did." The Old Man said, looking you in the eyes. For a moment, you think he might've read your mind. "My boy, my son had an affliction, one that I didn't understand, one that I couldn't help him with. He'd disappear. Right before your eyes. He'd always come back. Sometimes, he was bloody. Sometimes, he was naked, but he'd always come back."

"My boy was clever. I don't know where he got his smarts. Found them underneath a rock, perhaps. I know he didn't get them from me." A smile cracks across the Old Man's face, but is quickly washed away.

"He kept this notebook and he figured out exactly where he was going when he was gone. He had them in a list, knew that he always went to one of five places: 15th Century China, 18th Century America, 19th Century Poland, Scotland in the 23rd Century and a place that was full of trees. He couldn't find out where that last place was, but he thought that it was a place before or after people ever existed. He knew what was happening and where he was going, but he couldn't find a way to stop it." The Old Man's eyes went dark and hollow and you think he must of known it, because he looks away from you.

"He was only 19-years-old and the Doctor killed him, but not before promising that he'd help my boy. The Doctor came sauntering down the road, asking about my son, asking about the man who disappears. The Doctor was right on my doorstep, him and a girl. The Doctor had this thing. It looked like a high-tech wand, but he called it a screwdriver. He waved it in front of my boy and my boy just vanished in front of my eyes, in front of the Doctor and the Doctor's girl. The two of them exchanged looks like it was all fun, like my son popping out of thin air, nude and bleeding, was all a game." The Old Man took a long draft of his drink and smacked his lips.

"The Doctor didn't see the fun in it when he came back. I didn't want to, but I get the Doctor my son's notebook. The Doctor said he could follow my son, find him, keep him safe. He actually told me that. Him and his girl left and true to his word, he found my son and he also found something else. He found out that my son's affliction was causing people to get hurt, causing them to die. It wasn't my boy's fault. He couldn't help it. I don't even think he knew. Apparently when he disappeared, he torn something open that didn't close right away. People fell in after my boy and they died in the space between there and here. It wasn't my boy's fault. He didn't deserve to die over something he couldn't control." You hear the Old Man take in a deep breath and you want to tell him that he doesn't have to continue, but you don't.

"The Doctor tried something to stop my boy from disappearing, from taking people with him when he did, but it didn't work. The Doctor was supposed to be the one that fixed things like that, but he couldn't fix my boy. So, instead, he killed him. The Doctor was a coward about it. He had his girl take me to the harbor while he did the deed because he knew that I would've stopped him. My boy could've killed a million people when he disappeared, I wouldn't have let him die for it." The Old Man's voice shutters wih rage and pain and a single tear rolls down his cheek.

"He was laying in his bed, like he was just sleeping. The Doctor said he was dead and he stood there, staring at me, waiting for me to do something. My fists were balled tight and I wanted... I wanted to shatter his skull. I wanted to beat him to death. I want to run my fists right through him and realized that the Doctor, the great and powerful Doctor, wanted me to. He killed my boy and he hated himself for doing it. He wanted to feel all the pain that he had caused me and decided, then and there, that I wasn't going to give it to him. I'd let him live with it. I told him to get out, to leave forever. He left with his head down below his shoulders and I never saw him again." The Old Man drains the rest of his mug and gestures for another. You don't know what to say, so you say nothing. You blink and remain silent.

"That's the Man you're looking for." The Old Man says as he reaches for his new mug of Guiness. You stand and step away from the Old Man and decide that, maybe, it is time that you went home and let the Time Lords be nothing more than a fairy tale.


End file.
